Macrophyte BQE overview Geoff Phillips Principle Scientist Ecosystems

Macrophyte BQE: overview Geoff Phillips Principle Scientist, Ecosystems Team, Research & Innovation 5 November 2009

Overview “Intercalibration” progress has been slow, but the outlook is getting better Most macrophyte “experts” & the BQE coordinator have been engaged in sampling or other work related to the WFD. Meeting of cross gig group February 2009 Warsaw.

Conclusions from Warsaw meeting Several countries with no method Some methods not comparable Need for GIGs to have good data sets Extend NGIG common metric to other GIGs (UK - NW) GIGs to work with WISER Develop a max depth of colonisation metric (MS) Develop a metric for hydromorphology (SH) Explore the possibility for comparing phytobenthos metrics (GE)

Northern GIG – Seppo Hellsten (FIN) No meeting of GIG Phase 1 successful Finland – developed trophic index, compare using NGIG ICCM GIG needs to check Ref conditions used in phase 1 meet guidelines Comparability criteria may need to be considered Compare hydro-morphology metrics ? Add abundance metrics or max depth colonisation ? Majority of group members are part of WISER GIG database exists Needs development to include hydromorphology pressures and additional metrics such as colonisation depth

Northern GIG – Decisions following WISER meeting Revise NGIG common data set – cover values Use CBGIG/WISER template Data available by March 2010 Collect data from regulated lakes Environmental data + water level change Collect data for maximum depth of colonisation Improve NGIG common metric & test pseudo common metrics (average of all country assessments of common data set) Focus on high alkalinity lakes & comparing FI metrics Joint work by GIG and WISER experts

Central Baltic GIG – Rob Portielje (NL) Last meeting Norwich Sept 2008, next meeting planned Feb 2010? Phase 1 PL, FR, LT, DK did not IC in phase 1 UK, NL, BE, LV, EE, DE preliminary decision New data by December 2009 (GIG/WISER template) Provided by PL, LT, LV, EE, UK, Promised by NL, DK, FR No response GE, BE Need to check methods (WISER questionnaires) some countries still no method (FR), need to clarify data requirements Exploration of different IC approaches by Nigel Willby (transfer ideas from River GIG) Plan to use combination of common metric to investigate data and option 3 for comparison Apply NGIG ICCM to CGIG data

Approaches Common metric – species scored derived from a weighted average of TP for selected species from all countries in GIG (or similar analysis using common data set) – NGIG approach Pseudo Common metric – Average of normalised EQRs for all countries assessments of the common data set. “neutral” assessment of status Regressions of national metrics with pseudo common metric Pair wise comparisons of differences in EQRs

Example of potential difficulties Correlation between standardised country EQRs in phase 1 common data set ly e s p is often very low. o l c elo k r v Explore metrics to o e w o d on o t understand reasons R t mm G I SE co G Weighted average of. Bpressure I ith C W variables & average EQR ith forics w e nd w a rset as taxa across data t Gcommon & I e G t. ICCM er n m atab Apply N NGIG h e mo d g o m. MS Comparetother co classifications of “home” assessments by each MS

Alpine GIG – Karin Pall (AT) Next meeting November 2009 Vienna Only AT & GE successful in phase 1 IT & SL have now completed methods FR method available summer 2010 Compliance check of methods by summer 2010 New data collection started Consider use of WISER template Option 3 comparison from summer 2010 Not able to include hydromorphology Need to demonstrate that phytobenthos is not needed as only GE use method

Phytobenthos - outstanding issue UK would like to contribute/lead a comparison based on diatoms Propose a meeting of interested countries in January 2009 Need to review which countries consider other phytobenthos (macro algae) Guidance suggests countries which do not include phytobenthos should demonstrate that this is not needed How to do this ? Common data set for countries with specific metrics for macrophytes and phytobenthos Cross GIG activity (cannot rely on WISER) UK has a project to compare diatom and macrophyte classifications. Would welcome ideas from other MS as part of above.

Eastern Continental GIG - Anca Sarbu (RO) Workshop March 2009 Romania agreed common types use of RO sampling method, training spring 2010 HU & RO started method development Develop new data set from surveys in 2010 Macrophyte index autumn 2011 (Option 1 IC ? )

Mediterranean GIG Are not intercalibrating macrophytes ?

General Issues Taxonomic metrics sensitive to nutrients are not sufficiently sensitive to provide reliable evidence in high alkalinity lakes ? “Sensitive” taxa are often found in sites with high nutrients Many countries EQRs are significantly related to species diversity. Is this a good metric as it is dependent on lake size. How can we overcome the problem that there are very few reference high alkalinity lakes in Central Europe Need to make IC more of a scientific evaluation of data to demonstrate how ecological status is evaluated by different countries and less of a comparison of numeric EQRs

BQE groups need to learn from each other River Macrophyte group have developed several new approaches Need to consider if NGIG lake group should also deal with river macrophytes ! WISER can help with common metric development in next 3 months GIGs need to apply national methods to data sets at same time. Allow development of pseudo common metrics and to test relationships with common metrics Parallel process of metric development (Science) & application. Understand the approaches being used by different countries